


Transubstantiation

by titC



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Blood, Chloe is in the know, Chloe is not convinced of daddy dearest's parenting skillz, F/M, Gen, but like for religious purposes, everyone wishes Father Frank was still around, from LED to gold, hoity toity toitle, identity and stuff, in the past and not graphically described mention of ill-treatment, plastic Graal, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 20:55:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14245563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titC/pseuds/titC
Summary: Transubstantiation: when the bread and wine of communion become the flesh and blood of Christ.





	Transubstantiation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sequence_fairy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/gifts).



> From Sequence_Fairy's prompt, " _Now taste / All I ever needed / All I ever wanted / So hold on to surrender_ – Arizona, by Kings of Leon"  
>  Pitching in since your originally assigned artist has been struggling with stuff!

Chloe looked up at the cross hanging from the ceiling. God, huh. The son of God, capital letter. The God. Or just God? Was it weird like The Chloe? And then one son, among many other children. She was still trying to wrap her head around it all. Looking back on it, she didn’t feel that surprised, but it was still… well, it was still a lot. All that it implied, all that it made suddenly true: that was what she struggled with.

If Lucifer ever learned she was trying the church thing, she’d never hear the end of it. She knew her parents had prayed for a child, she knew she’d been their little miracle – and Lucifer’s face when she’d told him that story had been priceless – but they’d never really taken her to church on Sundays. Her mom was on set, her dad was working; the time was never right. She dimly remembered a couple Christmases when she’d gone with her grand-parents back when they’d still been alive, but that had been long ago. It had all sounded about as real as fairy tales and Disney movies anyway.

But now… She watched the faithful file in and get in the pews from her seat at the back of the church. A few kids pointed at her before their parents tugged them away, some sullen teens dragged their feet, a couple old ladies smiled at her radiating too-good-to-be-true benevolence and excessive curiosity.

Chloe felt out of place.

But her friend and partner was Lucifer Morningstar, retired Lord of Hell and son of God whether he liked it or not (most definitely not), and she needed something more. Something else.

 

She tried to focus on what was happening. Worship, singing, ritual words… was it all expected of her now? It seemed so pointless, so… faked, perhaps. Where was the heart of it?

Just before meeting Lucifer, she’d had a case she’d never really closed. It still rankled. The vics had all been young, a bit troubled perhaps from what the parents had said. The kids would disappear, then a few weeks later their bodies would be found, full of drugs and with signs of deprivation and rough treatments. The investigation had uncovered yet another of those pray-the-gay-away camps, but by the time they’d got there it had been too late. Empty. They’d never found their main suspect, and the trail had gone cold since then.

Chloe looked up at Jesus on the cross. It couldn’t be what he’d died for, was it? God wasn’t supposed to want people to suffer, right? Not even his children. But Jesus had called out for his Father and had received no answer while he’d been dying in agony, and Lucifer… She took a deep breath to try and get rid of these thoughts and focus on what she was there for.

The priest read from the Bible, waved a goblet, folded and unfolded a piece of pristine white cloth. She tried to pay attention, but her mind kept wandering. Blah forgiveness blood blah flesh. It sounded a bit gruesome, now she thought about it. Eating the flesh of Jesus, drinking his blood? She had never, uh. What was the word? eaten the holy host? partook in the Eucharist? She _thought_ she’d been baptized, but not anything else. Dan, or more accurately his family, had insisted on their marriage to be at least blessed by their family priest, and that had been the last time she’d set foot in a church for religious purposes. The Espinozas hadn’t gotten their wish to see Trixie baptized, and now Chloe was wondering if that had been the best or the worst decision she’d ever made.

She let her mind drift when the congregation started a last hymn, her thoughts half on Lucifer and his piano and half on the paintings of chubby angels and fluffy clouds and golden harps on the wall closest to her.

 

“Hello, my child. Welcome into the house of God.”

Her eyes snapped to the man sitting in front of her. “Oh! Oh. Um, hello.”

He smiled, benign and harmless. _A bit too much to be believable_ , an accented voice said in her head. _Shut up, Lucifer._ “You’re new here. I noticed you didn’t join us for communion.”

“Um…”

“I simply wondered if you had questions, or wished to confess, or wanted guidance. This is a place of worship, but also a haven.”

What was he talking about? She wasn’t in need of, of protection. “I’m fine.”

“You’re looking for something, though. That’s why you are here. And I’m quite sure the Lord can, and will, provide.”

Oily. He was, she decided, oily. Lucifer would have a field day making fun of him, and Father Smug would have a fit. It would be really funny. “I have received a lot already,” she answered.

“Oh, and you wish to thank Him?” Chloe looked away. Frankly, what she wanted with God was first to have a serious conversation about parenting and decency. Anything else could wait. “Come, my child. The parishioners always prepare a little buffet for us all to mingle after Mass. Please join us.”

“I haven’t brought anything. I don’t want to impose.”

“Nonsense! There’s always enough, my child. Our Lord will provide, heh? And you can think about what you need from our church.”

He gave her one last oily, oily smile and made for a door near the entrance where most of the attendants had disappeared. Chloe hesitated. On the one hand, he didn’t seem like the kind of priest she could talk to; on the other… maybe it would still yield something? If not answers, at least where not to look for them?

With a sigh, Chloe stood up and followed Father decidedly-not-Frank. What motivated them all? Why was actual proof of the divine not enough for her to want to worship? Why did it only make the divine less, well, divine? And what did divine mean, anyway? And to think she’d believed finally knowing about Lucifer would clear things up. Hah.

 

Mingling. She should try mingling. _Pretend this is a case; you're here to gather intel._ She wished her partner was here.

“Oh, hello! You’re new, yeah? I mean, hi! I’m Steph.” A middle-aged woman was holding out her hand, and Chloe shook it.

“Chloe. Nice to meet you. Yes, I’m new. Just looking for, you know.” Chloe added a little self-conscious giggle. She aimed for ‘harmless SoCal blonde’ and she was pretty sure she nailed it when Steph threw an arm over her shoulders to drag her to a table.

“Let me make the introductions, then! We’re a nice bunch here, you’ll see. You’ll feel home in no time!”

 _Grin and bear it, Chloe, grin and bear it._ They were nice, sure. And extremely boring, and very preoccupied with curtains and who young Kimberly should see and where are you from and do try this it’s a family recipe wink wink.

She excused herself to regroup in the bathroom. She wasn’t going to find what she was looking for there, whatever it was. But where…? Maybe she should just leave now. Disappear, never come back, and hope no case would ever bring her back in touch with these good, boring people. She looked at her face in the mirror. Boring, really? That was unfair, she didn’t know them. She decided for escape, but a polite one, and went back in to say her goodbyes.

Of course, it didn’t happen, because _someone_ had _somehow_ arrived.

“Ah, here you are!” How had he found her?

“Hey, Lu – um.” Maybe she should avoid saying his name out loud among these people.

“I wasn’t looking for you, but I felt… a pull, shall we say, to come here.” He looked around with a grin, and a lot of the congregation fluttered their eyelashes at him. Chloe grimaced. Oh, of course.

“Are you tracking my phone?”

“Nope, darling. As I said, I sensed I was… needed.” At that, Lucifer turned to the priest; and that’s when Chloe realized he’d backed from the buffet table to a corner of the room, a cross shaking in his fist. “Now, now, no need for dramatics, is there?” He picked a plastic cup with a moue, waved his fingers over it, and then it was filled with something burgundy rather than transparent. “There, much better. No proper wine glasses, it’s a shame. Ah well, Josh never was very refined in his tastes, you know. Here, have a sip.”

Chloe took the cup and – mmh, it was a very nice wine indeed. He started picking more of them and doing his hand-wavey trick and distributing wine around him. When kids started to flock to him he looked at her and she frowned and he sighed, and he gave them grape juice instead. Well, at least she was pretty sure it was grape juice. That’s what… Jessie? Jenny? said she got when she asked for something non alcoholic, at least. They were now all crossing themselves before taking their wine, looking up at Lucifer, trying to get closer to him… all, but the priest.

“You…!” He was crossing himself too, but the gesture looked much more aggressive when he made it rather than the parishioners.

“Yes, me. Care for a taste?”

“Get thee away from us!”

“No can do, _mon père_. I’m here for you.” The crowd parted so Lucifer could stalk to the priest, cup in hand. “Will you partake in our sharing of my brother’s holy blood?”

“Jesus!”

“Yes, that’s his name. _That_ here, is his blood.” Lucifer held out the plastic glass. “Drink, father.”

Chloe joined Lucifer. The crowd closed ranks after her and she felt like she was crossing the Red Sea at the last minute right before it could crash back on her. “Lucifer?” She heard a few gasps behind them.

“I hate liars. I hate manipulators, I hate _evil_! I am the punisher, and while my brother forgives, I do not. That’s his shtick, not mine, _padre_.” The priest had refused to take the cup, and Lucifer upended it over his head. It was filled with a thick, slightly viscous, dark red liquid.

The priest screamed when it reached his lips. “Satan! Satan!”

“Among other names, yes.”

“Lucifer, is that – ”

“I’ll never understand this pretending to eat and drink Joshua’s flesh and blood, but it’s all pretty harmless. Symbols, Linda says. She explained they were important. But this man? This man, Detective… is not harmless. And now is the time of reckoning. My brother’s blood only gives life to the deserving. To the others…”

That was when Chloe realized that silence had gradually fallen around them. The priest was whimpering as his flesh slowly burned and the blood of Christ seemed to melt his face, the skin of his hands, his collar. “Lucifer…”

“Oh, don’t worry. He’ll heal. Then burn again, then heal… But he’ll be well enough to face human justice first, all while his sins eat at his soul. And then, one day, he’ll die.”

“Hell?”

“Hell.” He turned back to the petrified congregation. “Some of you know why. He won’t hurt anyone ever again, that I can promise.” Blank stares, all of them. “Oh, _that_ was proper wine. He’s the only rotten egg here, _you_ got the good stuff.”

“Are you really…?”

Lucifer looked down at a little boy. His short, fuzzy hair hardly reached Chloe’s hip. “Am I really what?”

“A guardian angel?”

Lucifer choked, and Chloe grinned. “More like an avenging, um. More like avenging.”

She left him trying to fend off enthusiastic kids who’d bounced back from their fright much earlier than their parents and called the precinct from a pew at the back of the church. When Dan arrived, he raised his eyebrows at the sight of Lucifer trying to extract himself from the crowd. A few other officers corralled the parishioners to start their inquiries, and Chloe blew some hair from her face. Finally.

“Even when you’re not on the clock you manage to solve cases, Chlo. Good job, though.”

“Well, the case was solved, we knew it was him.” Somehow, she’d been led to where Father Tadek had reappeared under an alias and disguise that fooled no one. She wasn’t sure who or what had made her go to that one church, far away from Venice that she’d hoped no one would have expected her there. It seemed fate, or something like it, had decided for her.

She tried not to dwell too much on it. Chance was a thing too, right?

 

Once outside in the California sun, Chloe felt like a weight had been lifted from her chest. Maybe going to church had worked, after all. She looked at Lucifer ambling by her side. He was loose-limbed and happy, not at all like he’d been for the past few months. More like he’d just swooped down to dish out divine justice or something. Swooped, indeed – his Corvette was nowhere to be seen.

“I was surprised to see your car here, Detective. Looking for answers?”

“Maybe I was? I’m not sure. I’m not anymore, at any rate.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a good thing.”

“Oh. Oh, good.” He looked so much less confident all of a sudden.

“You’ve kind of been my guardian angel, you know.”

“Well, I…” He squirmed, shifted from foot to foot.

“It’s all right. I’m… We’re all right.” They were. Something had shifted in both of them. Resettled. She felt… solid. Some things were not questions, and didn’t need answers. Some wine wasn’t only wine, some angels were not only angels, and that was fine. That was okay. That was _good_.

Chloe looked up at him just as Lucifer looked down at her, and they both smiled like loons. She kissed him and he yielded and softened around her, and she could taste the wine on his lips.

A taste of death, a taste of life.

 


End file.
